#4403 Layout and print for Story worse than for Article

[Helge Stenström]

For reasons I don't understand, the same text can be presented as a story or an article, with different URL syntax and different layout, both online and in print.

My main problem is with the printout of Stories.

Compare http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/07/20/0044240 with http://tech.slashdot.org/story/09/07/20/0044240/Why-the-Photos-On-Wikipedia-Are-So-Bad?from=rss .

I like to read Slashdot offline, but the first double-sided page is wasted when the Story URL is used, as compared to when the Article URL is used.

I use Google reader and the RSS feed to select the Slashdot stories I want to read. If I find a story interesting, I click on it's header, which has a link URL such as http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/3B4qIt41aoA/Major-New-Function-Discovered-For-the-Spleen. It is then replaced by some interaction between browser and server into http://science.slashdot.org/story/09/08/04/194230/Major-New-Function-Discovered-For-the-Spleen?from=rss. This is the URL format that behaves badly in print.

When stories are printed, the menus that are useful online are printed as bulleted lists, wasting space, before the actual story and discussion. When the article URL is used, the menus are not printed.

[Helge Stenström]

Print of story

[Helge Stenström]

Print of article

[Helge Stenström]

Online layout of article

[Helge Stenström]

Online layout of story